David Bianculli on David Mamet’s new HBO film Phil Spector:

This Phil Spector telemovie, essentially, is a two-person play — an awkward dance between Linda and her eccentric client, as he reveals his shifting psychological states by jamming his mental gears between charming remarks, challenging questions and emotional rants. Pacino is an actor set at hurricane force here, and Mirren matches him by countering his fury with her calm. Mamet’s dialogue, as expected, is crisp and thought-provoking, and these two acting pros make the most of it.

Image of Helen Mirren as Linda Kenney Baden and Al Pacino as Phil Spector courtesy of HBO

From the HBO press release about the new David Mamet-written-and-directed film Phil Spector:

In the hands of celebrated playwright, screenwriter, author, director and producer David Mamet, Phil Spector is a mythological story, and he approaches it as such, rather than as a news story. Mamet begins his film with the card, “This is a work of fiction. It’s not‘ based on a true story.’ It is a drama inspired by actual persons in a trial, but it is neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor to comment upon the trial or its outcome.”

David Bianculli is reviewing the film on the show today. In the meantime, here’s an interview with David Mamet (as well as the actor Shawn Ryan) from 2006 about Mamet’s CBS series The Unit.

Coming up on Fresh Air Weekend, Golden Globe-winning director Ben Affleck talks about his Golden Globe-winning film Argo and Dustin Hoffman talks about directing for the first time with Quartet, and about how he is an unattractive man but would have been had he been born a woman.

Affleck also talks about his fondness for doing impressions. And he does a mean Al Pacino as the clip above demonstrates.

Critic John Powers reviewed Scarface in 1983. He didn’t like it. But recently he revisited the movie…